The Coalition has unveiled its plan for more regional action to stop people smuggling, pledging $420 million for policy measures that include paying Indonesian villagers for information about smugglers and buying unseaworthy boats.

The plan also includes increasing the number of Australian Federal Police officers working overseas, boosting Indonesia's search and rescue capabilities, and supplementing Australia's border protection fleet.

"We want to have a program that reaches out up to 100 villages across Indonesia," he said.

"We need to give the people implementing that program the tools they need to engage those local communities: having village wardens that can be on stipends, having the ability to offer bounties to lead to information that leads to arrests and successful prosecutions, but also the opportunity to ... get that boat before the people smuggler does and stop that boat from leaving Indonesia.

"That saves lives, it saves the taxpayers' money ultimately and it stops boats coming to Australia."

Mr Abbott says roughly $20 million has been allocated to the "village watch" activities, but would not give a figure for what the Government would pay for boats or for information that led to arrests.

"This is the kind of thing that will be left to the discretion of our people on the ground acting in close cooperation with the Indonesians," he said.

"The important thing is that we stop the boats.

"It's much better and much more sensible to spend a few thousand dollars in Indonesia than to spend $12 million processing the people who ultimately arrive here."

Burke slams policy as 'clumsy, crazy'

Immigration Minister Tony Burke says the Coalition's policy has been delivered as if it has been made up on the run.

Mr Burke says it is irresponsible to discuss covert operations in the media, and has accused the Opposition of not receiving consent from the countries involved before making an announcement.

"The clumsy nature of simply letting embassies know at the last minute this was about to come, without seeking consent, without seeking cooperation, without seeking any direct engagement of that fashion with the other countries is a recipe almost guaranteed to fail," he said.

He has also taken aim at the plan to buy dangerous boats, saying it is "simply crazy policy".

If you look at it purely from an immigration perspective, the scale what have you're dealing with just leaves it as doomed to fail.

Immigration Minister Tony Burke

"Three quarters of a million boats and they reckon they know which will be used for people smuggling and they will have a boat buyback scheme," he said.

"They'd be lending a hand to the ship-building industry of Indonesia in a way they're not willing to lend a hand to the car-building industry of Australia.

"But if you look at it purely from an immigration perspective, the scale what have you're dealing with just leaves it as doomed to fail."

Plan to send asylum seekers directly to Nauru, PNG

Mr Morrison says under the Coalition's policy, instead of sending asylum seekers to Christmas Island, a commercial boat would take them to a transit port in another country.

From there, they would be flown to Nauru or Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.

"We'll work through those issues as part of the Bali process, with Indonesia who are co-chair, to ensure we can identify the suitable places within the framework of that cooperation," Mr Morrison said.

"It was Kevin Rudd as foreign minister who went up to Bali and announced his regional protection framework, which ran the great risk of creating one big asylum magnet in Indonesia. We think you have to focus on deterrence."

While Mr Abbott did not detail what representations had been made to Indonesia before the announcement, he said it was in Indonesia's interests to stop the boats.